Why Formula One Management needs a kick up the backside

This past Sunday, live on YouTube a record eight million people watched Felix Baumgartner skydive from 128,000 feet. The moment, for me, shown that the way we watch live events is changing. But how quick are people adapting to the change?

Whilst television is still king of transmitting live events, the fact that eight million people watched Baumgartner’s skydive shows that the internet is becoming a bigger player, and will only serve to become an even bigger force in the future. So how is motor sport adapting to the change? Do they have Facebook and Twitter pages for users to interact with their sports, and do they upload short clips to YouTube accounts?

The best examples of motor sport series’ which interact with fans has to be the IndyCar Series and MotoGP.

– MotoGP (Facebook/Twitter/YouTube)
– IndyCar Series(Facebook/Twitter/YouTube)

Both series’ have Facebook and Twitter pages, which in 2012 is crucial not only for communicating with your existing fan base, but also trying to attract new fans to the brand. I say ‘brand’ because that is what it is, yes it may be a form of motor sport but it is a ‘brand’, and the more recognised the brand gets via Facebook and Twitter, the more likely new fans are going to get onboard, and the more likely it is that the wheel will keep on spinning. Looking at the Twitter for both accounts, you can see that they are similar in their communication methods, both are clearly human controlled which makes it seem all the more real, they both sometimes respond to fans and hold Twitter Q&A sessions on the accounts. So that is all the right boxes ticked.

And the YouTube accounts for both MotoGP and IndyCar Series allow fans to get exclusive content as well as race highlights, to dive more into the sport they love. It also allows new fans to try it out, chances are if you don’t like the three minute highlight packages then you won’t return, but if you think “you know what, I like that”, then the person is more likely to return. And that’s one more fan watching your product. In no way or stretch of the imagination is that a negative thing. The benefit as well with having YouTube accounts is that they can also upload archive clips. I did spot however that the MotoGP account has been active for five years, and in that time they have built up 112,000 subscribers to YouTube, and their videos have been viewed 205 million times. The advantage there being that videos that were uploaded five years ago are still there now, take this video package for the Motegi MotoGP round in 2007, uploaded on September 23rd, 2007 and has now amassed nearly 5 million views. Not bad, hey! Both channels as well, more importantly make you feel ‘welcome’ to the page and allow you to explore further.

Again, MotoGP and IndyCar Series are both fantastic examples of how to build a social media profile, both have done everything right on that front which will benefit them in the future. Now, what about Formula 1, I hear you ask.

We’ll start off with Facebook. I can see a lot of fan pages, but not much in terms of official. There is a official DHL F1 Logistics page with 350,000 fans, but that seems an awfully odd title for a page. Where’s the official Formula 1 page created by Formula One Management’s social media leader? Because as far as I can tell, there is not an official page. Whilst there are team pages, there is no official pages, unlike with MotoGP and IndyCar Series.

Moving onto Twitter, and things improve. Slightly. There’s two official Formula 1 Twitter accounts here and here. Whilst that is a good thing, the two fail significantly in many areas. The first thing you will notice is that they appear identical. That’s probably not a coincidence, because diving deeper in, and it seems that both are just automated feeds that pull articles from the official Formula 1 website. I mean, what is the point of that? There’s no interaction at all, they don’t retweet anyone, they don’t conduct Twitter Q&A sessions, it is just an automated feed, which probably requires zero human intervention. So from that perspective, it’s pretty weak. Why not do a Twitter Q&A session on their official Twitter account? If Barack Obama can do a Q&A on Reddit, I’m pretty certain that Bernie Ecclestone can do a Q&A with Twitter users! I get the impression that they don’t wish to interact with the fans. If they did, then they would have opened up their Twitter account more instead of leaving it to an automated feed.

Finally there is YouTube. I would link to the official Formula 1 YouTube account. Except there is not one. Why? Who knows. MotoGP operates similarly to Formula 1 in the way that they do their worldwide television broadcasting rights, so why Formula One Management choose not to create an official Formula 1 YouTube account is beyond me. Some people would probably start screaming for Classic F1 races straight away. Personally, there is no chance of that happening. I don’t think the MotoGP account does that, so the chances of any Formula 1 YouTube doing that is highly unlikely. But uploading highlights one day after a race along with onboards and other exclusive content? Unless their contracts with broadcasters are that water-tight which effectively ban them from creating a YouTube account, I really don’t see a legitimate reason for why the above cannot be done. I’m not exactly requesting Mount Everest, but a few exclusive clips here during race weekends would not go amiss.

The fact that I am typing this in 2012 though is completely laughable when in reality Formula One Management should have jumped on the YouTube bandwagon years ago and started to upload clips. Instead of uploading exclusive content onto YouTube, Formula One Management seem insistent on removing content from the video sharing site. On one hand they are perfectly entitled to protect their copyright, but on the other hand that material is gathering a lot of dust doing nothing on the shelves at Biggin Hill as I’ve described multiple times here. If you are not bothering to reuse archive footage in new and unique ways then yes, in my opinion other people should use it in any way they see fit if you are not maximising the material you have. Touching onto the official websites for a minute, MotoGP’s video archive goes back to 1992. The Formula 1 website video archive goes back to 2008. Which is ridiculous. Okay, you have to pay to access MotoGP’s archive, but considering the amount that is on there, it is not unreasonable to ask for a fee.

Events like Felix Baumgartner’s jump last Sunday show how the internet is revolutionising the way we consume information and watch live events. In my opinion, Formula One Management need a kick up the backside where social media is considered, because they are three steps behind the rest of the world. Of course, let us not forget that Formula One Management always seem to be a few steps behind. We didn’t get widescreen until 2007. We didn’t get high definition until 2011. So don’t except them to start adapting more to the internet revolution any time soon…

The Twitter outlook

F1 in Korea is in full swing, whilst over here on the blog, it is time for the weekly Twitter blog:

Drivers – The Top 10
01 – 1,175,238 – Jenson Button (McLaren)
02 – 1,143,694 – Fernando Alonso (Ferrari)
03 – 1,123,886 – Lewis Hamilton (McLaren)
04 – 502,197 – Bruno Senna (Williams)
05 – 448,151 – Mark Webber (Red Bull)
06 – 310,004 – Sergio Perez (Sauber)
07 – 275,903 – Pastor Maldonaldo (Williams)
08 – 205,445 – Nico Rosberg (Mercedes)
09 – 182,720 – Pedro de la Rosa (HRT)
10 – 182,036 – Heikki Kovalainen (Caterham)

Drivers – Biggest Increases
01 – 23,397 – Lewis Hamilton
02 – 20,590 – Fernando Alonso
03 – 19,448 – Jenson Button
04 – 9,589 – Sergio Perez
05 – 7,476 – Felipe Massa

Drivers – Smallest Increases
01 – 448 – Charles Pic
02 – 732 – Jean-Eric Vergne
03 – 939 – Daniel Ricciardo
04 – 1,469 – Nico Hulkenberg
05 – 1,895 – Heikki Kovalainen

For the first time ever in this series, Lewis Hamilton records the largest gain over the past week. It is not his biggest gain, that came a few weeks ago, but the reason he has moved into first above is because Fernando Alonso’s gains in the past month have slowed somewhat from 40k per race week to 20k per race week. I posted a month ago about their respective gains, but since then his gains have slowed.

Another interesting point is that Sergio Perez’s nine thousand gain is not his second highest as he recorded a higher increase during the Italian Grand Prix week thanks to his second place. So his McLaren move, although it put him top last week, may not result in an instant long term effect. Further down, Bruno Senna became the fourth current Formula 1 driver to break the 500,000 mark, so congratulations to him.

Teams – The Top 10
01 – 348,103 – Ferrari
02 – 244,125 – McLaren
03 – 164,992 – Red Bull
04 – 155,773 – Mercedes
05 – 141,615 – Lotus
06 – 88,329 – Caterham
07 – 83,910 – Marussia
08 – 82,115 – Force India
09 – 80,927 – Sauber
10 – 76,951 – Williams

Teams – Biggest Increases
01 – 4,769 – Ferrari
02 – 3,103 – Red Bull
03 – 3,053 – McLaren

Teams – Smallest Increases
01 – 496 – Williams
02 – 620 – Toro Rosso
03 – 790 – Caterham

An interesting few weeks for Sauber have brought them above the 80,000 follower barrier.

Driver and Team statistics as of Monday 8th October 2012.

The Twitter outlook

So, then. What happens when one driver moves from a midfield team to a front running team, and another driver moves from a front running team to a front running team? The answer, is here…

Drivers – The Top 10
01 – 1,155,790 – Jenson Button (McLaren)
02 – 1,123,104 – Fernando Alonso (Ferrari)
03 – 1,100,489 – Lewis Hamilton (McLaren)
04 – 498,191 – Bruno Senna (Williams)
05 – 442,369 – Mark Webber (Red Bull)
06 – 300,415 – Sergio Perez (Sauber)
07 – 269,231 – Pastor Maldonaldo (Williams)
08 – 202,488 – Nico Rosberg (Mercedes)
09 – 180,199 – Pedro de la Rosa (HRT)
10 – 180,141 – Heikki Kovalainen (Caterham)

Drivers – Biggest Increases
01 – 23,535 – Sergio Perez
02 – 15,097 – Lewis Hamilton
03 – 13,238 – Jenson Button
04 – 12,547 – Fernando Alonso
05 – 5,599 – Bruno Senna

Drivers – Smallest Increases
01 – 333 – Charles Pic
02 – 514 – Timo Glock
03 – 619 – Jean-Eric Vergne
04 – 622 – Daniel Ricciardo
05 – 1,043 – Kamui Kobayashi

Moving to McLaren not only gained Sergio Perez an extra 23,000 followers, clearly his highest yet in this series of blogs, but it also sent him above 300,000 followers. Fernando Alonso’s fourth place is the lowest he has been ever in the increases chart, whilst Lewis Hamilton did not gain many more followers compared to Jenson Button or Alonso.

Outside of the top few positions, Nico Rosberg went over 200,000 followers, possibly a side effect of his new formed partnership with Hamilton and Pedro de la Rosa overtook Heikki Kovalainen for ninth place.

Teams – The Top 10
01 – 343,334 – Ferrari
02 – 241,072 – McLaren
03 – 161,889 – Red Bull
04 – 153,836 – Mercedes
05 – 139,676 – Lotus
06 – 87,539 – Caterham
07 – 82,780 – Marussia
08 – 80,728 – Force India
09 – 78,719 – Sauber
10 – 76,455 – Williams

Teams – Biggest Increases
01 – 5,092 – McLaren
02 – 4,062 – Mercedes
03 – 2,909 – Ferrari

Teams – Smallest Increases
01 – 504 – Toro Rosso
02 – 594 – Caterham
03 – 599 – Williams

McLaren recorded clearly the highest gain in the past week, again thanks to Perez. Mercedes had their highest gain yet since I started this series, although before that, it is quite possible that they gained higher than 4,000 followers in a week when Rosberg won the Chinese Grand Prix.

Driver and Team statistics as of Monday 1st October 2012.

The Twitter outlook

A hectic September, on and off the blog, is coming to a close with a few changes in this week’s Twitter outlook. With September coming to a close it is also a full round-up as we see who made big gains for the month, as there are several changes to the order.

Drivers
01 – 1,142,552 – Jenson Button (McLaren)
02 – 1,110,557 – Fernando Alonso (Ferrari)
03 – 1,085,392 – Lewis Hamilton (McLaren)
04 – 492,592 – Bruno Senna (Williams)
05 – 438,710 – Mark Webber (Red Bull)
06 – 276,880 – Sergio Perez (Sauber)
07 – 265,469 – Pastor Maldonaldo (Williams)
08 – 198,774 – Nico Rosberg (Mercedes)
09 – 178,728 – Heikki Kovalainen (Caterham)
10 – 177,907 – Pedro de la Rosa (HRT)
11 – 164,857 – Felipe Massa (Ferrari)
12 – 160,603 – Paul di Resta (Force India)
13 – 140,005 – Narain Karthikeyan (HRT)
14 – 100,137 – Vitaly Petrov (Caterham)
15 – 86,240 – Nico Hulkenberg (Force India)
16 – 82,550 – Timo Glock (Marussia)
17 – 76,702 – Romain Grosjean (Lotus)
18 – 73,952 – Kamui Kobayashi (Sauber)
19 – 45,870 – Daniel Ricciardo (Toro Rosso)
20 – 32,718 – Jean-Eric Vergne (Toro Rosso)
21 – 19,699 – Charles Pic (Marussia)

As I have noted several times in the past few weeks, since my August full round-up, Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton have both hit one million followers. The gap between Alonso and Jenson Button is now only 32,000 followers, meaning that Alonso is certainly going to overtake the Brit in the next few weeks, especially so if he becomes World Champion.

Further down the pecking order, Vitaly Petrov becomes the 14th driver in the 2012 Formula One field to hit 100,000 followers, so congratulations to him. What it does mean is that only seven of the 21 drivers on Twitter are still under 100,000 followers. Michael Schumacher, Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen are still, unfortunately, yet to join. Also of note is that Felipe Massa and Romain Grosjean have moved up a position, Massa in front of di Resta and Grosjean in front of Kobayashi. Although Grosjean has only appeared in two races this month, his ban after the Belgian Grand Prix generated a lot of attention on Twitter, no doubt contributing to why he overtook Kobayashi.

Drivers – Increases
01 – 123,791 – Fernando Alonso (n/a)
02 – 101,988 – Lewis Hamilton (n/a)
03 – 59,932 – Jenson Button (n/a)
04 – 23,689 – Sergio Perez (up 3)
Average driver = 23,387
05 – 22,094 – Mark Webber (up 1)
06 – 21,189 – Felipe Massa (up 2)
07 – 18,974 – Bruno Senna (down 2)
08 – 14,736 – Pastor Maldonaldo (down 4)
09 – 14,036 – Paul di Resta (up 3)
10 – 12,110 – Pedro de la Rosa (down 1)
11 – 11,614 – Vitaly Petrov (n/a)
12 – 11,383 – Romain Grosjean (up 2)
13 – 10,930 – Nico Rosberg (n/a)
14 – 10,871 – Narain Karthikeyan (down 4)
15 – 8,948 – Heikki Kovalainen (n/a)
16 – 6,371 – Nico Hulkenberg (up 1)
17 – 5,309 – Kamui Kobayashi (down 1)
18 – 4,264 – Daniel Ricciardo (n/a)
19 – 3,474 – Jean-Eric Vergne (up 1)
20 – 3,229 – Timo Glock (down 1)
21 – 2,194 – Charles Pic (n/a)

The up and down positions above is a comparison to their position in the same table last month. You could compare the raw values if you wanted to as both months are over a four week period, but it would not be a particularly fair comparison as August had zero races whereas September has had three races. Hamilton’s gain was by far the highest monthly gain recorded of his since I started blogging about Twitter driver and gains in April – his previous highest gain being 79,859 in July. Button, Petrov, Grosjean and both Force India drivers also recorded their highest monthly gains yet.

Teams
01 – 340,425 – Ferrari
02 – 235,980 – McLaren
03 – 159,447 – Red Bull
04 – 149,774 – Mercedes
05 – 138,049 – Lotus
06 – 86,945 – Caterham
07 – 81,742 – Marussia
08 – 79,430 – Force India
09 – 76,703 – Sauber
10 – 75,856 – Williams
11 – 62,550 – HRT
12 – 50,774 – Toro Rosso

Williams and Force India have stopped exchanging places, instead Sauber have overtaken Williams. Marussia have broken the 80,000 follower barrier, so congratulations to them.

Teams – Increases
01 – 21,124 – Ferrari (n/a)
02 – 14,997 – McLaren (up 1)
03 – 12,915 – Red Bull (down 1)
04 – 9,644 – Lotus (n/a)
Average team = 8,046
05 – 7,163 – Sauber (up 1)
06 – 7,103 – Mercedes (down 1)
07 – 5,776 – Force India (up 1)
08 – 4,223 – HRT (up 2)
09 – 4,113 – Marussia (down 2)
10 – 3,282 – Caterham (down 1)
11 – 3,221 – Williams (up 1)
12 – 2,999 – Toro Rosso (down 1)

Ferrari, McLaren, Force India and Sauber all record their highest monthly gains yet, Sauber moving into fifth which contributed to why they overtook Williams.

Driver and Team statistics as of Monday 24th September 2012.

The Twitter outlook

No race last weekend meant things stayed fairly stable in this week’s edition of the Twitter outlook..

Drivers – The Top 10
01 – 1,130,558 – Jenson Button (McLaren)
02 – 1,090,410 – Fernando Alonso (Ferrari)
03 – 1,069,547 – Lewis Hamilton (McLaren)
04 – 486,710 – Bruno Senna (Williams)
05 – 434,569 – Mark Webber (Red Bull)
06 – 272,647 – Sergio Perez (Sauber)
07 – 261,786 – Pastor Maldonaldo (Williams)
08 – 196,761 – Nico Rosberg (Mercedes)
09 – 177,277 – Heikki Kovalainen (Caterham)
10 – 175,809 – Pedro de la Rosa (HRT)

Drivers – Biggest Increases
01 – 16,366 – Fernando Alonso
02 – 15,599 – Lewis Hamilton
03 – 12,268 – Jenson Button
04 – 4,851 – Sergio Perez
05 – 4,825 – Bruno Senna

Drivers – Smallest Increases
01 – 394 – Charles Pic
02 – 582 – Timo Glock
03 – 682 – Daniel Ricciardo
04 – 761 – Jean-Eric Vergne
05 – 901 – Kamui Kobayashi

Sergio Perez stays in the top five for biggest increases, meaning that Mark Webber is outside of the top five. It does not affect the overall charts, however, with the gaps between the drivers’ fairly substantial.

Teams – The Top 10
01 – 337,015 – Ferrari
02 – 233,320 – McLaren
03 – 156,409 – Red Bull
04 – 148,256 – Mercedes
05 – 135,964 – Lotus
06 – 86,395 – Caterham
07 – 80,686 – Marussia
08 – 77,864 – Force India
09 – 75,368 – Sauber
10 – 74,963 – Williams

Teams – Biggest Increases
01 – 2,632 – McLaren
02 – 2,480 – Ferrari
03 – 2,317 – Red Bull

Teams – Smallest Increases
01 – 378 – Williams
02 – 586 – Toro Rosso
03 – 688 – Caterham

For the first time ever in the Twitter outlook, McLaren recorded the highest increase of the week, definitely thanks to their three wins in Hungary, Belgian and Italy. As predicted last week, Sauber’s move up the table begins, overtaking a slow moving Williams into ninth position. Also, Marussia breaks the 80,000 mark, which I think is worth noting given that teams’ tend to increase a lot less than the drivers’ week on week.

Driver and Team statistics as of Monday 17th September 2012.